Project Description: Individual breath cycles of 108 people living in the Squamish area were recorded to create a “breath symphony” composed with these sounds. Participants were also asked to write words that came to them as they focused on their breathing, that the artist formed into a poem to accompany the symphony. This visual poem (composed of images and scanned handwritings of participants) was projected upon an ephemeral cloud like form made with sanded acrylic sheets installed by the river.

“People are over-trained to look at things; if they could learn to look in-between them, whole universes would open up”

-Swami Jnanananda Giri

I would like to invite a 108 people living in the Squamish area to let me briefly record the sound of their individual breath cycles (40 seconds or so). From these sounds I will create a “breath symphony”. Participants will also write out a word associated with breath. To give visual form to this, I will use my finger to trace out these words upon a window that is gently allowed to fog up with my exhalations. I will photograph these words and run them in a sequence to form a poem. This visual poem “breath song” will be projected out in nature on a transparent screen, appearing and disappearing like an ephemeral cloud, for the community to enjoy.

I have been a student (and teacher) of meditation for the last six years. As an artist and an aspiring Yogi, I have been observing and studying breath as the “gap”, the pause between words, as the vital animating force flowing through life forms, as the invisible thread weaving in and out of all beings. The intimate breath exhaled by one floats freely on air currents, to be received by another, oblivious of man made borders; a series of inhales and exhales shared all the way from New Delhi to Vancouver.

In meditation practices, breath is considered a subtle kind of “Border”, a diaphanous veil moving between the physical and energy (astral) world, the thread tying the spirit to the body. Riding the wave of the physical breath (often through “pranayama” practices in cycles of 108 breaths) is said to eventually bring us to the borderless place within us where unity with all existence is experienced.

I would like to conduct a series of workshops on breath, states of consciousness and interconnectedness and invite a 108 people living in the Vancouver area to let me record their individual breath cycles through a sensitive microphone. Often fueled by thought and action to change its qualities of rhythm, intensity, evenness and smoothness the breath often reveals one’s state of mind more deeply and accurately than words, facial expressions or body language. To give visual form to this I will have a framed glass “window” upon which I will request the participants to exhale, gently allowing the window to fog up. They will be asked to consider one word that they associate with breath and write (wipe) that out with their finger on this fogged window.

A video camera placed on the other side of this glass will simply capture a series of 108 words slowly appearing and disappearing with the condensing breath from the 108 mouths behind the word and potentially the writing of the words. I will then use this footage to create a “Breath Song” of Vancouver, arranging the sequence of words to form poems accompanied by the symphony of different breath rhythms and sounds. In its display for the Biennale, I envision this visual song projected onto a large (approximately 20ft X12ft) transparent surface (like 3m acetate or Plexiglas). Invisible and supported by an unobtrusive armature (perhaps a tree, a rock formation or subtle scaffolding) and placed in a relatively quiet, beautiful natural setting (preferably with flowing water or open sky behind it) these words would appear to condense and evaporate upon the landscape behind, alternately revealing and obscuring it, as the viewers listen to the breath symphony though speakers or headphones. I would also like to layer the sounds of these 108 breaths to come up with one breath – the “average breath of Vancouver”. I envision doing this project in 108 different cities and coming up with the Breath and Breath Songs of Delhi, Assisi, Chicago – many of the places I live in and travel through.